Wednesday, December 14

It's nearing the end of the year and I am exhausted. I decided to take two days off work to spend some quality time with my son. Yesterday was all play, fun and games. We even got the pool out and splashed about with his friends. I had lots of fun and was definitely tired by the end of the day.

Today we went downtown and had a yummy breakfast at Mari's Bakehouse and spent 2 hours at the movies watching Zoro - Madison loved it. He is now outside playing with his posse. My carpenter from work is coming in this afternoon to fix the ceiling upstairs and tommorrow he will be putting mosquito netting all around the top floor - hopefully it would stop that nasty black cat from next door coming into the house at night! I am loosing too many loaves of bread (haha).

Wednesday, December 7

When I awoke this morning, Madison said "mommy, alu work?" and I said "I don't feel too well son, I might stay home." He walked over to me and touched my forehead and said "auoi Mommy your hot, you sick, stay home ok?" .. I giggled and said "ok Doctor Mano'o, mommy will stay home."

......So much for staying home, HRH (His Royal Highness) dragged me out of bed to go shopping downtown. Daddy promised to buy him a superman and spiderman ofu today and Madison kindly reminded us of that promise. So, Daddy dropped us off at the Market and we spent 1/2 hour searching for his clothes. We found two sets of tops and shorts (spiderman and some other cartoon character), 2 pairs of spiderman jandals and a nice light blue manu samoa t-shirt. HRH even asked if we could buy a t-shirt and shorts for his friend Amataga... so we bought one for him too. As soon as we got home, he went to show off his shopping to his friends next door, and gave Amataga his new clothes.

A few days ago, the same dog that attacked Madison, bit the owners very own daughter while playing in front of their house. Papa's advice to me, following the attack on Madison, was for me to talk to the dogs owner and logo the pulenu'u of Lalovaea East. The problem is, the dogs owner IS the pulenu'u!

This morning as Maddy was walking out the front door towards the garage, the dog walked onto our front porch, terrifying Madison, sending him running for cover.

As you can imagine, I'm not too thrilled with my son NOT being safe in front of his own house. I've already asked the owner to "do something about his dog" and to "keep it off my land", yet my son is still open to further attacks during the day when I'm not around to look after him.

This may sound like foolish over-protective daddy bravado, but if my son gets bitten again by that dog, I'm not only going to kill that dog, I'm going to go over and break a chair over Matamua's head, whether he's handicapped or not.

Tuesday, October 25

Yesterday, Maddy got bitten in the arm by the next door neighbours dog, Nila. Maddy didn't cry but he had 3 puncture wounds in his upper arm which all broke the skin. I can't believe he didn't cry because it looked very painful. I was soooooooooo angry.

I was planning on putting the dog down by means of our machete when I got home from work but after getting a calming phone call from Papa in NZ, I have decided against it. I can see the headlines now, "Man killed over dispute over dog".

I'm eagerly awaiting the day we can put a fence up between us and the next door neighbours so stuff like this doesn't happen again...

Tuesday, October 18

Last night Maddy brought his friend Amataga (4) from next door over to play upstairs. After awhile, Maddy lost interest and went into the bedroom to watch tv with mommy leaving his friend with me in the living room. Not long after that, Amataga told me he wanted to go home and I said, "OK alu loa oe i le fale". He went downstairs, I heard the door open and I thought nothing more of it.

So it came to our suprise when we heard Amataga crying from downstairs a few minutes later. When we asked him what was wrong he said he was afraid to go home by himself and that it was too dark! Haha silly me, I should have known. So Maddy offered to momoli him home and mommy went along with them just to make sure they were okay.

Friday, October 7

Maddy and I are at home today. I have the flu and maddy still has a slight cough. I think its definitely the weather, or else I'm a bit rundown, or maybe I just couldn't be bothered going into work today (hehe). We have just finished breakfast and maddy is about to go next door to play. All the kids in the neighbourhood are on a weeks holiday and maddy is really loving it. They play most of the day in the garage, running around chasing each other, teasing each other, or chasing "jealous" (the neighbours dog!).

Madi went to lotu Wednesday evening with the kids and learnt two new songs. Here are the words:

I help you, you help me
We're a helping family
Helping helping
Sing a helping song
Helping Helping all day long

It's White Sunday celebration this weekend and town is buzzing with shoppers. White clothing is displayed everywhere even in furniture stores. They had a two day market day, where businesses come together under one roof to sell their products (usually at a discount). Didn't quite make it this time round, maybe next time.

Since Monday is a holiday, I think we will be spending it at the beach (weather permitting). Madi has become quite the swimmer or shall I say isn't scared of swimming on his own now.. as soon as we get to Taumeasina, he quickly jumps out of the car and straight into the water... no hesitation whatsoever... the other kids... well .. lets say it takse at least 10 mins before they decide to even touch the water. He is such a big boy!

Madison hasn't been feeling too good since Friday. He has a slight cough and runny nose. We took him to his usual doctor and he prescribed antibiotics and pamol. He thinks this should clear within 5 days. Last night wasn't a good night as he found it really hard to sleep. We both were up and down all night until he finally fell asleep around 4 am. To my amazement, he awoke at 8ish, ready to go out and play with his friends. He hasn't coughed much at all today so I think the antibiotics are kicking in. YAY!

It's been raining alot over the last couple of weeks.. why? they say it's palolo season.... who knows! It's been cool during the day and hot throughout the nights.. unbelievable. Anyways, Matt is at golf today, the kids next door helped me sweep the yard, pick up the rubbish and leaves, and hang out the washing. I swept and mopped downstairs and I still have to tackle the upstairs... maybe tommorrow!

Love to All the Family expecially to Aunty Suluama - Our prayers are with you - Get Better Soon :-)

Tuesday, September 20

Sometimes I wonder who the head of this family really is. Madison thinks it's him, Rachel thinks it's her and I (foolishly perhaps) think it's me. As you probably guessed, Maddy wins out most of the time.

Yesterday he suprised us both by saying he wanted to go back to school, so we took him to school. The teachers looked pleasantly suprised to see him and we were both happy that Maddy wanted to go to school as well. He didn't even want his mommy to walk him to the door.

So today, he tells us he doesn't want to go to school because it's "uma". No matter how much we tried to convince him that school would be fun, he refused to get ready and instead declared that he wanted to go to work with me instead. He wasn't too happy when he didn't get his way!

Friday, September 16

We took Maddy to an inflatable playground yesterday that they had running at the Eleele Fou. It had a giant rock face for climbers, a rugby challenge complete with slides and obstacles as well as an enclosed trampoline-like tent. Maddy loved it!

After playing there for about an hour, I decided it was time to go home but Maddy kept saying, "Daddy, one more?" with this cute little smug grin on his face. How could I resist? After about 4 or 5 "one mores" we finally managed to drag him off the slides and into the car.

Wednesday, August 31

Rachel and I decided to let our housegirl go yesterday. Without going into too much detail, we decided that it would be better for all concerned, especially Madison, that we went our separate ways after a rollercoaster 6 months together.

There are times when I wonder why people take advantage of other people's generosity. You give them things they never had, freedom to do whatever they want, reward them for good work and still, they find a way to make you regret being so nice to them.

Maybe the majority of Samoans aren't used to this concept and are more familiar with the "tough love" approach of strict supervision and well defined boundaries. I know that's a gross generalization but in my experience with people I've worked with and people who have worked for me, I find this to be true.

It's in my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt, to believe that people are intrinsically good, so I guess this makes me gullible in a way. Maybe I should be more cynical or skeptical in my future dealings with people.

Monday, August 29

We took Maddy and his posse of friends from next door to the playground yesterday afternoon. I can't describe how pumped they all were to be going to the playground, it was a nice feeling doing something for the kids that they really enjoyed.

The kids were running all over the place, laughing and screaming for joy, seemingly in a rush to play with every single thing. Maddy wanted to be the centerpiece of every game they played and was often frustrated when the other kids ran away because they didn't like the way he tried to dominate everything.

It was funny watching this because by the end of the day he figured out for himself that playing nice was more fun because the kids stuck around a lot longer than when he was screaming his lungs out trying to direct traffic.

Wednesday, August 24

Rachel, Maddy and I would like to wish aunty Lagi in New Zealand a big happy birthday! We hope you have a wonderful day and got lots and lots of prezzies. Maddy says that since it's your birthday, he's expecting a pressie from you in the mail!

Madison is speaking Samoan so well now that he speaks in slang too. A good example of this is how he adds the word "sole" to almost everything he says. Just the other night he asked mommy for some bubblegum and when mommy said no, he replied, "Leaga ia o mommy sole".

He's also developing a very strong independent personality, he must be the leader in everything he does. If the other kids don't want to go along with what he wants, he'd rather play by himself then go along with the crowd.